MANPOWER REGISTER

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 100, 29 April 1940, Page 8

MANPOWER REGISTER

UNPAID OVERTIME PLAN. SCHEME NOT PRACTICABLE. (From Our Correspondent.) WELLINGTON", Sunday. A statement published last week regarding a projrosal that members of the fublic Service should be a*ked to work overtime without pay on the compilation or a national register of manpower is challenged by the-secretary of the Public Service Association. Mr. F. W. Miller. The report that the proposal had been killed owing to th" unfavourable attitude of the younger men of the service is contradicted by Mr. Miller. '■Neither the Government, through the Public Service Commissioner, imr the Public Service Association lias mad.." any proposal that the work of compiling the man-power register should be carried out by public servants woru:iig overtime without pay, therefore no question of rejection or 'abandonment' can arise." says Mr. Miller. "What did happen was that the association askcl its representatives in the various Departments to discuss with the staffs the practicability or otherwise of the work being carried out and an indication of the numbers of staff who \> oi:M possibly be available for six or seven months' work, the idea being that volunteers should be limited in the main to senior officers who would not be eligible for war service. The junior officer* as a group were therefore not regarded as eligible, either by reason of the fact that the majority of them ar<> engaged in nightly studies. which should not be interfered with for too long a period, ore |>ending enlistment, or are already being called upon by their own Departments to work sonic overtime.

"The association's 'feeler' male abundantly clear that a large iiiiiulkt of public servant!! are readv unci willing to make themselves available. In our view, however, taking all the circumstances into consideration, including the plowing demand* for overtime work within officers' own Dcp.-m----ments, it is doubtful whether it would be practicable to compile the nanpower register efficiently and promptly wholly by part-time workers."